To St. Louis and Beyond.

[So, I had this typed up days ago, but it's been waiting in drafts for the pictures :P ]

On Saturday I went to the MO state Tae Kwon Do championships. I carpooled with my Tae Kwon Do instructor and two girls from my studio, and we left at 4:15 in the morning. We were supposed to leave at 4, but I got there late.

3 hours and 45 minutes later, we roll into the highschool's parking lot, and since we have some time to kill, we stop by Starbucks and get breakfast. Apparently we didn't have as much time to kill as we thought though, because by the time we got back, picked up our credentials, and weighed in, they were calling 14-17 blackbelts for forms. So I jog over to them in my sweatpants with my hair and a really attractive falling out ponytail, and ask if I need to go change right now. So I run like the wind to the bathroom, change, plop my clothes all over the bleachers, and go back to the table. We didn't start for another 10-15 minutes though, figures.

I got third in forms, out of three. Not to make excuses for myself, but they were doing an older, more traditional style of forms. I was going more by the new USAT guidelines, which means narrower stances, and more focus on technique than power. Regardless though, I did forms kind of on a whim, hadn't really been practicing, forgot where the ki-haps were supposed to go, and was a little wobbly on the "balance on one foot and perform two blocks simultaneously" parts. Anyway, I didn't really care about forms, I came for the sparring.

And, in sparring, I dominated. Of course, it helped that there were only two other people in my division, neither of whom were very good, both of whom I had a height advantage on, and one of whom said she had a sprained ankle. Maybe my perception of "good" is just really high since the people in my studio are at such a high caliber, but after I beat them both by a seven point gap, I was scouting at all the other matches that were going on, wishing I could jump into another weight division and go win that one too. Me? Ego? Nah :P It was just really weird being the one scoring all the head kicks, I'm used to getting beat up and scored on like crazy in the noggin area (and everywhere else) at tournaments. The tournaments I'm thinking of specifically were in 2006 and 2007 though, so I guess a lot has changed. (The girl I'm thinking of in particular just stuck her leg up in the air and side-kicked me repeatedly. In the face. The first year the match was over in about two seconds before I even knew what hit me. The second year I knew what was coming, and I lasted slightly longer and even got the judges to think I had maybe scored a point.) But even in recent years at my studio, I don't typically go for the head, and rarely make the headshots when I try. At this tournament though, I got a headkick on the girl, and the judges accidentally awarded the points to her, but by the time my instructor protested I'd already scored a few more points so he just let it go. The girls I sparred kept trying to get up to my head area, but either I've gotten better at blocking/avoiding, or I'm just too tall for their puny legs. Mwahaha. This tournament was also interesting because although there was a lot of head contact, no one came away crying. Ms. Foot-in-my-Face left me crying in the bathroom the first time. The second time I don't remember if I was crying in the bathroom, but I know I was at least hyperventilating hiccups for a few minutes following the match. The last time I got a head-shot to a girl at a tournament that I can remember, it was a sudden death round because we were tied when time ran out. I was desperate for a point and I went for a headshot and ended up kicking her in the chin accidentally, she fell over and she was the one crying in the bathroom. I felt really bad, but the point counted and I won. If I remember correctly, since I beat her I got to go on to spar Ms. Foot-in-my-Face, so I suppose there was some mercy to it.

Me? I'm nothing though. I'm inconsequential. The big story of the day was Meghan. She's a green belt, my age, and she's been doing Tae Kwon Do for about six months, and she works out with us in competition team. Besides her, the lowest belt there is brown. This was Meghan's first tournament, and she totally creamed her division. There were 5 people in it, three green belts, a white belt, and her. One of the green belts went completely wacko when she sparred, the white belt sparred like a charging bull, and Meghan just danced around them all scoring roundhouse kicks like crazy. If you get a seven point gap you win, otherwise you go three one minute rounds. Meghan only went into the second round once, and it was over very quickly. Needless to say, we were all going nuts in the stand. We had seats right in front of her ring too, which was awesome. Her nickname is now officially "The Beast" and I can't wait to see how she develops in the future. I only wish I had had those kinds of opportunities as a green belt.

(meghan's in the blue)

(left-right: me, joney, meghan)

I spar really aggressively, and I think that's because when I was "growing up" in the Tae Kwon Do ranks, the classes were mixed with all belts. So, the first time I sparred it was against a super-aggressive black belt, and I was missing my arm protectors (they'd accidentally given me two sets of shin pads instead). That night I came home crying, but I still loved sparring. I sparred him later, came home crying again, and still loved sparring. (My sparring past seems to involve an awful lot of crying) Back in the old days, when I was a color belt... we had to walk up hill both ways in the snow. Actually, I think we had it easier than the current color belts, those were very lax years. But since it was easier for us then, it ended up being harder later. I really wanted to know how to spar, the technique of it, the game. No one ever taught it to us though, it was just put on your gear and fight. Survival of the fittest. People kicked me hard, I kicked them hard, and if I kicked them hard first, they wouldn't be able to kick me hard. I've never been afraid to go in, kick, and get a point. Sometimes that's not always to my advantage since I can set myself up for a really nasty kick, but I've gotten fast enough relative to the people I spar against that it works decently. If I'm not scoring points, I get nervous. Defense isn't my strong point. At last year's in-school tournament, I was actually beating Jacquelyn. I think I had like 4 points and she had none. But now that I was winning, I didn't know what to do with myself. After all, this was Jacquelyn. She was an assistant instructor when I first started taking Tae Kwon Do, and she taught me to do a back-kick counter-kick when someone was trying to roundhouse kick me, which I thought was an infinitely cool technique. I went into the match expecting to be soundly beaten, everyone else expected me to be soundly beaten, and here I was winning. The earth had come off its axis. I didn't know what to do except continue to charge in on the next great offensive. I didn't know how to stockade my stronghold and hunker down until time ran out. So I think I got overly antsy, and I kept going in trying to score points, and she would counter-kick and get a point back. In the end, I lost, but I sparred a good match. The plus side is that at least I didn't turn my back and run away like Timmy did when he was winning his match at the US Open.

Overall, the 8 kids who came from my studio netted 11 medals. Just fyi, Meghan and I were the only teenagers competing. Joney, who was the other one who drove up with us, was coaching.

Medal Count! Scroll down :P

Person	Sparring	Forms
Me	Gold	Bronze
Meghan	Gold	---
Caleb	Gold
Alec
Ashley	Bronze	Bronze
Timmy	Silver	Gold
Jack	Bronze
Karthik	Gold	Bronze

(Oh yes, I did just make a table. I was going to color code the cell backgrounds for the medals, but I didn't want to blind myself with my awesome coding powers. Of course, using those awesome coding powers to figure out how to get rid of that gap would be nice too, but I can always say it was to build anticipation.)

Personally, I think that how people placed is a bit misleading though. For example, Mr. Wilson was saying he thought that, in terms of personal best, Alec was the one who sparred the best, even though he's the only one who didn't medal in sparring. Also, the boys had slightly bigger divisions, so they weren't guaranteed a bronze like Ashley was. I'm ridiculously proud of all of them though, and I cheered my head off. College Football what? Junior sparring is where it's at.

(Karthik with his sparring gold)

There was actually this really cool girl who was sparring there. I was watching her and thinking that she was pretty good, and then I realized that one of her arms was stunted, and there was just a little several inch long forearm after her elbow. It was so cool to watch her spar.

There was also the most adorable little white belt boy there doing forms, and whenever he beat someone he would jump up in the air and do a fist pump. He was the cutest little tiniest little thing, and his form was amazing, for a kid his age. He won second, and as he was climbing up the bleachers past me, I told him congratulations and held up my hand for a high five. He kept telling me to raise it higher, and higher, and high, and higher, and higher, until I thought a little dude his size couldn't possibly reach it, and then he super jumped up and got it. Did I mention he was the cutest little thing? (except for Jack, of course)

(he's in the middle)

Finally, to round this all out, at the beginning of the trip Joney had told Mr. Wilson to drive smooth, so he kept lurching up to lights and taking corners really hard, just to annoy her. We went out to dinner at Joney's parents' Japanese steakhouse (they're Chinese though), and afterwards we were at a light with Ashley's mom. We open up the sun-roof and all wave out the top to Ashley's mom's car, making anyone else who was on the roads at 10pm think we were either drunk or insane. Then when it turns green, Mr. Wilson zooms off, and I tell him that Ashley's mom is going to think he's irresponsible. No sooner had I said that then who comes zooming past us in a red minivan? Ashley's mom. If it was some kind of drag race, Mr. Wilson got beat by a minivan. He just continued on watching her get farther away and said "She's definitely speeding."

If someone watches the Olympics in 10 years, they'll see someone with a black shirt on with a blue circle woosh on it, jumping up and down in the stands and yelling like crazy. That girl would be me, and that person creaming the competition in sparring would be Ashley's mom.